From Four Thousand Islands we took the BED BUS (yes you read that correctly - see photo) to Vientiene (the capital where we hung out for a day) and then to Luang Prabang.

We had an action packed few days which started with a trip to Elephant Mahout Training College! We spent 2 days with the most gorgeous female elephants which had been rescued from a horrible life with the illegal loggers in Laos. We were lucky enough to learn to ride on the neck, take them into the jungle at night time, bathe them and feed them. The highlight was definitely scrubbing them in the river - just look at Nic's face on the photos!! After 2 days and our Mahout graduation ceremony we kayaked back to town on the shallowest river ever!! At one point Nic actually got out and pushed the boat as it was quicker!! It was a wonderful and special experience that we would recommend to everyone!

Back in town, we decided to brave a Laos style cookery class! Anyone who knows us even vaguely will realise that this was actually a greater challenge to us than Everest BC!!! Nevertheless, we managed to create 5 wonderful (and edible) dishes!! However we would like to make clear now that this was under the supervison of a trained chef and will NOT be repeated at home! Sorry! We do however have a recipe book for anyone who would like to cook for us!!

That was pretty much it for Laos and as we'd completed it sooner than planned, we decided to move the flight to Indonesia forward to 5th June. We had some great experiences, especially extreme shopping at the night market in Luang Prabang where we purchased some unusual souveniers of duvet covers!